Man oh man do I resemble your remarks Pinback. I've mentioned on this board some about my drinking but wasn't going to share the excruciating details. If I could print out your first post and put a check mark everywhere I've done similar, there would be a shitload of damn check marks.
Hiding alcohol, check. In the trunk of the car, in a stack of bins in my home office, in the utility closet outside the front door which has the water heater and central air, outside the window of my home office, etc etc etc. Before I quit smoking pot, it was that stuff which was being hidden but after quitting I really stepped up the drinking for a time so alcohol hiding happened quite a bit.
Day drinking, check. Though I rarely drank to the point of intoxication until I was done with my job. Working at home makes it difficult to never ever have a drink during the day but at least for the next six months I can't do it ever (see below).
Drinking to the point of blacking out, check. Its weird but during the height of drinking I stopped getting hangovers but let me tell ya there's lots of mornings that I've woken up not remembering what happened after a certain time the last night.
Drank on errands, check. Usually a couple of cans of Mikes Harder are just the right amount to get where I needed to be while not being obvious that I'd been drinking. Any more and I'm in the position of . . .
Lying to my wife, check. Now, I personally don't consider never ever lying to my wife to be a good option because she has a problem of overreacting sometimes with fury over things, even if they can't be helped (like a job loss, delay in getting commission or bonus, etc) so sometimes news has to be broken slowly. By not doing the things that she doesn't want me to (mostly don't smoke or drink without her) then I can eliminate the most hurtful lies so that will have to be enough. She lies about stuff too, sometimes couples have to manage the narrative so as to not upset the other person (well, at least not upset them right now).
pinback wrote: Sun Feb 02, 2020 6:59 pmweekly (non-AA) meetings
So, I got a DUI last June (no accident, just got pulled over as I exited the expressway). Oddly and luckily, it happened on a night where I was way less drunk than I've been sometimes driving home, I even vividly remember the whole thing which I can't say about a lot of nights. It was a wake up call about behavior that is completely unjustifiable, especially in a time where an app on my phone can bring a cheap ride anytime with a couple clicks. It's completely changed aspects of my life due to having an ignition interlock device on my car for the next 6 months and having a weekly DUI class requirement (upcoming 2 days community service will be fun i'm sure). The interlock has eliminated my ability to ever "day drink" as even one beer during the day would prevent me from driving that evening. In fact, I drank till 2 am one night and when I went to start the car at 6:30 to drive to work it still gave me a warning. Wake up call for me.
One of the things my lawyer worked out with the judge before trial was that to get off easily, I would need to go to 16 AA meetings and get signatures that I did. Wow, what an experience that was. There are literally hundreds of AA groups in this area and I had to go to about 5 different ones in order to get my requirement done in time. There is every kind of person imaginable at these things and the stories range from fairly benign to guys that had to leave their home because of drunken violence or ended up waking up in jail not knowing what had happened.
I found that the folks like me who were required to be there were largely silent, just trying to get through it but the folks who WANTED to be there are absolutely freaky fanatics of AA. It's very much like a cult, with much of the meetings taken up by people gushing about how wonderful it is that they have this program or else they would surely be dead on the side of the road or in jail. I thought the religion aspect would be the worst part but no, it's the fact that at the end of the meeting everyone stands in a circle and holds hands, does the "lords prayer" and then gestate their arms up and down as if kids playing the parachute game at school while chanting "keep coming back it works". I hate holding hands with anyone but my wife, especially men, and really especially some of the scummy people at some of these meetings. My wife made me start bringing hand sanitizer to use before getting in the car after she saw the crowd leaving the meeting and learning that I had to hold hands with them. I'll take six months of DUI classes over ever going to another AA meeting.
I will say that the only good thing I got out of the AA meetings is a better understanding of myself and why I've been drinking as much as I have. Lots of the stories people told were embarrassingly familiar which helped with self reflection. Pinback's post has very much the same effect so thanks for that Ben!
Man oh man do I resemble your remarks Pinback. I've mentioned on this board some about my drinking but wasn't going to share the excruciating details. If I could print out your first post and put a check mark everywhere I've done similar, there would be a shitload of damn check marks.
Hiding alcohol, check. In the trunk of the car, in a stack of bins in my home office, in the utility closet outside the front door which has the water heater and central air, outside the window of my home office, etc etc etc. Before I quit smoking pot, it was that stuff which was being hidden but after quitting I really stepped up the drinking for a time so alcohol hiding happened quite a bit.
Day drinking, check. Though I rarely drank to the point of intoxication until I was done with my job. Working at home makes it difficult to never ever have a drink during the day but at least for the next six months I can't do it ever (see below).
Drinking to the point of blacking out, check. Its weird but during the height of drinking I stopped getting hangovers but let me tell ya there's lots of mornings that I've woken up not remembering what happened after a certain time the last night.
Drank on errands, check. Usually a couple of cans of Mikes Harder are just the right amount to get where I needed to be while not being obvious that I'd been drinking. Any more and I'm in the position of . . .
Lying to my wife, check. Now, I personally don't consider never ever lying to my wife to be a good option because she has a problem of overreacting sometimes with fury over things, even if they can't be helped (like a job loss, delay in getting commission or bonus, etc) so sometimes news has to be broken slowly. By not doing the things that she doesn't want me to (mostly don't smoke or drink without her) then I can eliminate the most hurtful lies so that will have to be enough. She lies about stuff too, sometimes couples have to manage the narrative so as to not upset the other person (well, at least not upset them right now).
[quote=pinback post_id=106033 time=1580695177 user_id=5]weekly (non-AA) meetings[/quote]So, I got a DUI last June (no accident, just got pulled over as I exited the expressway). Oddly and luckily, it happened on a night where I was way less drunk than I've been sometimes driving home, I even vividly remember the whole thing which I can't say about a lot of nights. It was a wake up call about behavior that is completely unjustifiable, especially in a time where an app on my phone can bring a cheap ride anytime with a couple clicks. It's completely changed aspects of my life due to having an ignition interlock device on my car for the next 6 months and having a weekly DUI class requirement (upcoming 2 days community service will be fun i'm sure). The interlock has eliminated my ability to ever "day drink" as even one beer during the day would prevent me from driving that evening. In fact, I drank till 2 am one night and when I went to start the car at 6:30 to drive to work it still gave me a warning. Wake up call for me.
One of the things my lawyer worked out with the judge before trial was that to get off easily, I would need to go to 16 AA meetings and get signatures that I did. Wow, what an experience that was. There are literally hundreds of AA groups in this area and I had to go to about 5 different ones in order to get my requirement done in time. There is every kind of person imaginable at these things and the stories range from fairly benign to guys that had to leave their home because of drunken violence or ended up waking up in jail not knowing what had happened.
I found that the folks like me who were required to be there were largely silent, just trying to get through it but the folks who WANTED to be there are absolutely freaky fanatics of AA. It's very much like a cult, with much of the meetings taken up by people gushing about how wonderful it is that they have this program or else they would surely be dead on the side of the road or in jail. I thought the religion aspect would be the worst part but no, it's the fact that at the end of the meeting everyone stands in a circle and holds hands, does the "lords prayer" and then gestate their arms up and down as if kids playing the parachute game at school while chanting "keep coming back it works". I hate holding hands with anyone but my wife, especially men, and really especially some of the scummy people at some of these meetings. My wife made me start bringing hand sanitizer to use before getting in the car after she saw the crowd leaving the meeting and learning that I had to hold hands with them. I'll take six months of DUI classes over ever going to another AA meeting.
I will say that the only good thing I got out of the AA meetings is a better understanding of myself and why I've been drinking as much as I have. Lots of the stories people told were embarrassingly familiar which helped with self reflection. Pinback's post has very much the same effect so thanks for that Ben!